Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery

by Charles Martin

  He looked down at Sketch. "You've grown a bit. What's it been? Two years?"

  He shrugged and shifted his chess set from one arm to another.

  Bert pointed. "Looks like you're still playing. She doesn't play any„ more.

  Sketch's eyes narrowed, and he followed Bert down the hall.

  The guard stopped at the nurses' station and said, "Gretta, how's Mrs. Hampton?"

  She pointed to a monitor. "She ain't sleeping."

  We walked down the hall to room 108, and Bert stepped aside. Sketch pushed open the door and walked in. An elderly woman was sitting up in bed. Her hair was thin, and most of it had fallen out. She was chewing on a fingernail, and her eyes seemed glossed over. When she saw Sketch, she smiled and patted the side of the bed. He pulled up a chair next to the bed and climbed up. He sat down, Indian style, facing her. She reached for his hand and sat looking at him. She tried to speak, but no words came out.

  The nurse whispered behind Mandy and me, "Missus Hampton's been in here 'bout a year. She hasn't spoken the whole time."

  Sketch opened his chess set and set up the pieces. Mrs. Hampton stared at the board, then slowly moved a pawn one space forward.

  Bert nodded. "He used to come see her most every day. She taught him how to play."

  "Who is she?"

  "She's a true Southern belle. Must be close to a hundred. Lived in an antebellum home downtown, not far from the Margaret Mitchell house. Used to tell some of the best stories." He pointed to the picture beside her bed. "That's her husband, Colonel Hampton. He died some twenty years ago now, but she keeps that picture and-"

  As he was talking her left hand would move the chess pieces while her right hand came up just above her gown and began searching her neck for something that wasn't there.

  "Oh ... there she goes again. She's looking for it now."

  Mandy whispered, "Looking for what?"

  Sketch had yet to move. When Mrs. Hampton's hand began searching her neck, he pulled on one of the drawers of his chess set and dug his fingers into the back of it. He pulled out a piece of tissue paper and began unrolling it. Mandy and I stepped close enough to see. Sensing us over his shoulder, he looked up at us.

  "It's okay," I said, "go ahead."

  Sketch unrolled the tissue and spread it out across his hand.

  Bert eyed the chain lying across the kid's palm and said, "That."

  Sketch picked up a long silver necklace. Held it up with two hands and offered to slip it over the lady's head. She saw it, eyed the diamond at the bottom, and leaned forward. He slipped it over her hair net and hung it gently around her neck where the diamond fell between her lonely fingers. He slid his sketch pad from beneath the chess set and quickly wrote, MRS. HAMPTON, I'M SORRY ABOUT YOUR DIAMOND. I DIDN'T TAKE IT I KNOW YOU'VE, BEEN MISSING IT SORRY I DIDN'T GET IT BACK SOONER.

  He laid the note on her lap and turned it around so she could read it. The nurse slipped between us and said, "Child, she can't really read anymore." She held the note and read it quietly to Mrs. Hampton, who was looking out the window, her fingers reading the facets of her diamond.

  "Shook this place up pretty good when that thing got stolen. We all had to take lie-detector tests. Then Sonya didn't show up for work, and that's about when everybody started pointing fingers at everybody else."

  Mandy and I looked at him in amazement. He liked knowing something we didn't, so he didn't mind talking.

  "Yeah, reporters, news crews. Lots of people." Bert pointed. "The Colonel gave her that diamond after he returned from his North African campaign. He was shot down over there."

  Buddy and Mrs. Hampton sat in silence, understanding each other perfectly.

  Unc stepped up to the bed and said, "Buddy, let's let this sweet lady get some sleep. We'll come back tomorrow. Okay?"

  Mandy pulled Bert aside. "Don't you have some sort of policy where you encourage family members to remove a resident's jewelry when they come here?"

  Bert nodded. "We do, and we tried with Mrs. Hampton. Only we ran into two problems-she didn't have any kin, and even if she did, she wouldn't willingly take that necklace off."

  I opened my wallet, pulled out Sketch's torn page, and walked around to the corner table and the picture of the colonel. I tried to open the Bible to the fifth chapter of Matthew, but it wasn't there. I spread the binding, found the tattered edge, and placed the single page up against it. It fit perfectly.

  Sketch nodded and slipped off the bed, but she didn't let go of his hand. He gently patted her with his other, and she let go. We walked out into the hall, where Unc talked with Bert. Sketch tugged on my pant leg and pointed to his sketch pad. His note read, Alm I GOING TO JAIL NOW?

  I showed it to Mandy, who knelt down and shook her head, "No, Buddy ... you're not going to jail." She ran her fingers gently across his head. "If anything, we ought to give you a medal."

  Because I figured Red was never going to believe this, I put us up in two adjoining rooms at the Ritz Carlton on Peachtree. Mandy in one, the three of us in the other. Four if you count Bones. Sketch wouldn't hear of him sleeping in the car, so we smuggled him up the back stairs, bathed him, and ordered room service.

  Unc watched the cat lap up the milk and whispered over his shoulder, "This could get expensive."

  We slept late and then gorged on the brunch buffet. While Mandy and I communicated with our respective offices, Unc and the kid played chess in the lobby. And I was right, Red didn't care.

  By lunchtime we were sitting in the office of Chester Buckley, the CEO of Cedar Hills, apologizing for last night. He didn't seem too upset, given the fact that Mrs. Hampton had her diamond back. After we finished explaining how we got there and he worked through his list of questions-which was long-Mandy and I asked a few questions of our own.

  He explained that Starks was a city-funded boys' home three blocks down the street. Several years ago they began bringing some of the boys in to spend time with his residents. "The kids were allowed to come if they were of the right temperament, which Stuart is."

  "Stuart?" I asked.

  "Stuart. Stuart Smoak."

  "That's his name?"

  "If it's the same boy, which I think it is. He's mute, right? That'd be Stuart. He used to come see Mrs. Hampton most every day."

  "What happened?"

  "Don't really know. About three years ago, the diamond disap peared, and so did one of our orderlies. A woman by the name of Sonya Beckers."

  Mandy slid a picture of the crumpled Impala across the desk.

  Mr. Buckley pointed at the burnt figure. "That's her?"

  Mandy nodded.

  He turned up his lip. "Guess crime really doesn't pay."

  We thanked Mr. Buckley and, with his permission, left Unc and the kid with Mrs. Hampton while Mandy and I drove Sally to Starks Boys' Home. Located a half mile from Cedar Hills, Starks stood as an Atlanta staple. An enormous, factorylike brick building, eight stories tall, it stood down near the railroad tracks that had been taken over by MARTA since the day that the garment factory pulled out. The sign out front read simply "Starks. Est. 1946."

  Sherry Quitman met us at the door with a smile, a handshake, and a native Georgian accent. A handsome lady, midfifties, her presence and the confidence with which she carried herself told me she could be CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Reminded me of a Dixiefied Margaret Thatcher. That told me she took this job because she wanted it. I liked her from the moment she said hello.

  She led us to her office and shut the door behind us. With little small talk, she slid a file across the desk and opened it for us. There before us lay what she could piece together of the life of Stuart Smoak.

  Sherry leaned back in her chair and recited the folder from memory. "Stuart came to us when we thought he was about four, maybe five."

  "You thought?"

  She nodded. "Not much paperwork. He came to us from a foster home in South Georgia, and they got him from another foster home who got him from somewhere in Tennessee." />
  "What do you know about his speech?" Mandy asked.

  "We got him that way. As best we can figure, one of the foster moms tried to strangle him after he peed in his pants. Crushed his voice box and damaged the muscles that control it."

  "How'd he start spending time with Mrs. Hampton?"

  "We developed this visitation policy with the folks at Cedar Hills. Stuart spent a lot of time down there because he could do what he was good at. Listen. I'm afraid that no matter how hard you try, kids will make fun of kids who are different. And Stuart is different. So he spent most of his afternoons down the street."

  "Who taught him to draw?"

  She smiled. "Pretty amazing, huh? That's something he picked up on his own. When he found he couldn't talk, he just started slipping the words out his fingers."

  Mandy needed specifics, so she continued to probe. "What legal steps did you take?"

  "Well, he was so young that I thought his chances of being adopted were still pretty good. So we did what you're doing right now-tried to find out more about him. I backtracked as far as I could, and the trail went cold in Tennessee. Seems there was a fire in the facility there. Records destroyed. Computers, too. The folks there told me that if we were talking about the same child, then he was a true foundling. Dropped on a doorstep in a basket. But we can't be sure." She shrugged. "We couldn't determine where he came from, who his family was, or even what part of the country he was born in. If one ever slipped through the cracks, it's him. When I figured all this out, we started the process to terminate parental rights-assuming there were any. Then we worked to find him a home, but it's hard enough to place children without disabilities.

  "A few months after he started going to Cedar Hills, a lady came to us and said she wanted to adopt him. We followed protocol, she checked out-no criminal record, home inspection went off without a hitch. She seemed real good with people, and the folks down at Cedar Hills gave her textbook references. We were elated. Thought we'd beat the system and the statistics. That's the last I'd heard of him until now."

  Mandy nodded and leaned back. Her face told me she was putting the pieces together faster than I. "Guess I can cancel those newspaper ads."

  "Why?"

  "Because there's nothing to terminate."

  "But can't we keep looking? We can't just quit. What if he's not a foundling? What if he's got some real parents out there somewhere? What if somebody's looking for him? I mean, somebody gave birth to the kid. That's got to mean something."

  Mandy shook her head. "Chase, I know you probably understand this better than both of us put together, but ... nobody's coming to get this kid."

  Sherry agreed.

  I pressed her. "What happens to him now?"

  "The state will resume custody. Given his past, his abuse . . . chances are good he'll remain a ward of the state until he reaches maturity."

  Sheryl Crow sings a song about how the first cut is the deepest. She's right. Only she ought to add a verse to that song. Because people who cut the heart of a child ought to have that same knife shoved up their spine and broken off at the hilt.

  I thought about Sketch playing chess with Unc, holding Mrs. Hampton's hand, eating a MoonPie, shuffling across the floor in his Spider-Man pajamas, wanting to stop the bleeding on Tommye's hand, standing in the street watching the funeral procession with his hand across his heart like he was reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. In a short time, he'd given me a lot of pictures.

  In a short time, well ... the kid was no longer a story I was writing.

  I remember the story of Jesus sitting there surrounded by kidsmaybe one or two sitting up on his lap. He said something about woe be to those who steer a child wrong. Something about how it'd be better for them to have a millstone hung around their neck and be thrown into the deep. In Sketch's case, I'd like to line them all up, tie them to the bumper of a Peterbilt, and pull them like beer cans down the highway.

  My mind raced. What was I going to tell him? How do you explain to a kid that nobody was ever going to turn down the driveway? What hope is there in that?

  The one thing I wasn't going to do was start calling him Stuart. Stuart was the name of a mouse in a movie. An underdog that tugs at your heartstrings. A kid with no chance. Not a kid who sketches like Norman Rockwell. Not a kid who gives Hank Aaron cards to salivating old men. Not a kid who's been passed over, passed on, passed up, beat to hell, and who ... who reminds me of me.

  Chapter 37

  -'d only been asleep about an hour when Tommye knocked on the .hatch of my boat. I lifted it and studied the water around us. "You know what time it is?"

  Strangely energetic, she grabbed my hand and looked at my watch. "Yeah, just a little after midnight. Guess I'm still on California time. Not that we slept at night much anyway. The `family' has a way of turning most people nocturnal."

  I sat down in the galley and hung my head in my hands, shaking off the sleep.

  She threw a shirt at me. "Come on."

  I was dead on my feet. Only she looked worse than I felt. "Where to?"

  "I want to show you something."

  "What could you possibly want to show me at this time in the ... morning?"

  "Can't you just let me show you one thing before I get so I can't?"

  "Why you gotta be so morbid all the time?"

  She put her hands on her hips. "'Cause I can look in the mirror and recognize the face. Now ..." She rolled her eyes. "Chase, shut up and get in the car."

  I pulled on a T-shirt, backwards and inside out, and paddled her back to shore.

  With no vehicle in sight other than Vicky, I raised an eyebrow. "How'd you get here?"

  She stuck her thumb in the air and lifted her sweatpants above the ankle.

  "You've got to be kidding me."

  She smiled smugly, and I just shook my head. Tommye was never afraid of much.

  We climbed into Vicky, and I eased off on the clutch. "Where to?"

  She pointed, so we followed her finger to town. With little to no breeze, the air was warm, muggy, and stuck to our skin. I'd like to think that was the cause of the sweat on her face, but I knew better. Every few minutes, she swigged from a water bottle that she clutched in her hand.

  Vicky bumped along the bricked streets and eventually rolled to a stop a block from the ZB&T. Tommye pointed to the parking spots along the road. "Anywhere is fine."

  I eyed the bank, then her. "You trying to get me arrested?"

  She laughed and shook her head. "For all your education, sometimes you just miss the boat."

  "What? You read the papers. I'm not allowed to set foot within fifty feet of this place."

  She laughed. "I guess Jack just doesn't want your business."

  She walked to the front door, where the three different security cameras captured our every move.

  "Tommye . . ." I pointed at the cameras.

  Hands on hips again, she shook her head. "Tell me"-she punched several buttons on the security pad-"why would I arrest you for walking into my bank"-the security system beeped three times and four lights turned green-`when I invited you?"

  "Your bank?"

  She chuckled, punched a few more keys, and the electronic lock sounded inside the door. She pushed it open, flipped on a light switch, and welcomed me into the lobby. "Come on in."

  Against my better judgment, I stepped into the bank. To my surprise, I heard no piercing shrill exit the speaker of the security system. As for a silent alarm, well, I figured I'd find out soon enough.

  Tommye walked through the lobby and up the stairs, and pushed open the door that read PRES. JACK McFARLAND.

  "Have you lost your mind? We need to get the heck out of here while we still can."

  She flicked on the light in her dad's office. "Anyone ever told you that you're kind of uptight? You need to relax."

  I stepped into the room. "Tell me about it."

  The office was enormous. It took up most of the second floor. The walls were twelve feet high and line
d with oak shelves stacked full of leather-bound books that looked designed more for show than go. The hardwood floors were covered in six or eight oriental rugs, and two leather chairs and one enormous leather couch dominated the center of the room. I found a personal bathroom off in one corner, matched by a wet bar in the other where a hundred or so bottles of wine were stacked from bar top to ceiling.

  The centerpiece of the office was a giant desk, maybe nine feet long and four feet wide, ornately carved from oak. I'd heard Unc talk about it. Ellsworth McFarland had it custom-made from oaks cut off the Zuta about the same time that they built the Brooklyn Bridge. Unc said he and Uncle Jack used to hide under that desk, playing cowboys and Indians.

  I walked around behind it. "May I?"

  The rolled and engraved edges were worn and darkened by time. It was truly the most magnificent desk, table, or piece of woodworking I'd ever seen. The desk was stacked with rolled architectural and engineering drawings detailing his plans for the Zuta.

  I looked out the window and saw a pair of headlights turn the corner. Atop the car, I saw blue lights. The officer parked his car, slid his nightstick into the loop on his belt, and strode to the front door. I pointed. "Fun's over."

  Tommye pushed down the blind and smiled. "Be right back."

  I followed at a sensible distance as she walked down the stairs and opened the front door for the officer-who, by the way, was the same one who had arrested me as I came out of the thrift store across the street just six weeks earlier. She cracked the door to the lobby and stuck her head through, acting friendly, but not letting him in.

  "Oh ... hi, Miss Tommye. Everything okay? I got a call saying that someone had entered the bank. No alarm or anything, but you know how Mr. Jack is."

  She waved him off. "I'm fine. Couldn't sleep. Still on California time. Just making some copies for Dad. Thanks for checking." She looked out at his car on the street. "Feel free to hang out awhile. I feel better knowing you're around."

  He ran his fingers along the insides of his belt and hoisted his Glock above his hip. "Yes ma'am. Will do."

  He pointed at Vicky. "Your cousin know you got his mistress? He's pretty partial to that ratty old thing."